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1 REPORT of the Planetary Science Subcommittee of the NASA REPORT of the Planetary Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee Greenbelt, MD 23-24 June 2008 Introduction The Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS) of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Science Committee held its eighth meeting on 23-24 June 2008 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Twelve of the 14 current members of the subcommittee attended the meeting, and six pending subcommittee members attended as guests. The agenda (attached) included a broad range of presentations and discussion topics. The morning of the first day began with a briefing by James Green, Director of the Planetary Science Division (PSD) of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), on division activities, as well as responses to PSS and NAC recommendations from earlier meetings. Michael Meyer, Mars Exploration Program Lead Scientist, summarized the current status of the Mars Exploration Program. Curt Niebur, Outer Planet Flagship Program Scientist, presented an update on outer planet flagship mission studies, and over lunch the subcommittee heard a talk on the latest results from the Phoenix mission by Principal Investigator Peter Smith. The afternoon began with presentations by chairs of the analysis groups — including the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG), Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), and Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials (CAPTEM). Those presentations were followed by one on Mars Sample Return (MSR) planning by Lisa May, MSR Program Executive. Clive Neal, LEAG chair, then gave a summary of the Lunar Capability Concept Review (LCCR) meeting, which had just been held on 18-20 June. The last agenda item of the first day was an evaluation of how well PSD had met its 2008 performance goals, an exercise led by Philippe Crane and carried out in conformance with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). The subcommittee deliberated on the four PSD performance goals (3C.1 through 3C.4) for the year and judged that each goal had been achieved (and merited a rating of green). The second day of the meeting began with three presentations that summarized the results of independent studies of the factors that affect cost growth for NASA missions. Paul Gilbert, Manager of the Discovery, New Frontiers, and Lunar Science Program Office at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, summarized a study that his office had completed on improving life-cycle cost management of planetary missions. Claude Freaner summarized a recent Headquarters study of 40 NASA missions on the effect of optimism in early conceptual designs on cost and schedule growth later in mission history. Cindy Bruno, from the NASA Science Support Office at the Langley Research Center, summarized the results of an SMD study of cost and schedule performance on 15 flight projects. Following a lunch break and a discussion period, the subcommittee was joined by SMD Associate Administrator (AA) Ed Weiler, who answered questions for nearly two hours. The meeting ended with a review of subcommittee findings and recommendations stemming from the two days of discussion. General Assessment of PSD Programs The time of the PSS meeting was a time of transitions for the PSD. Some of those transitions were obvious, such as the departures of such long-term Headquarters staffers as Denis Bogan, 1 Kurt Lindstrom, and John Rummel and the return, transfer, or arrival of others (Max Bernstein, Len Dudzinski, Gordon Johnston, Tom Morgan, and Joan Salute). The National Research Council will be undertaking studies on how best to balance Research & Analysis with planned and ongoing missions and on the detection and mitigation of near-Earth objects, and plans have already begun for the next decadal survey for solar system exploration. The growth to date in the Mars Science Laboratory budget has been largely addressed, and the pressures on other elements of the Mars Exploration Program are not as acute as at the time of our last meeting. At the same time, the change in AAs at SMD has meant that the mix of priorities for PSD has been to some extent shuffled, and there is the added uncertainty of an election year in which a change in administration is certain but the changes in national space policy are not. Flagship Missions The PSS is encouraged that PSD is proceeding thoughtfully and carefully with the definition of an Outer Planet Flagship (OPF) mission and with a possible Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, although the large cost for each type of mission and the similarity in their development and launch schedules under current plans raise the immediate question of how both can be accomplished without a more distinct phasing of efforts. The OPF plans are the more mature of the two. Two mission concepts are being studied in potential partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA): a Europa – Jupiter system mission, and a Titan – Saturn system mission. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in the course of preparation of the President’s fiscal year 2009 budget, was encouraging of an OPF mission. A change in the assumptions underlying mission planning since the last PSS meeting has been the directive to find the “sweet spot” in science return versus mission cost rather than design the mission to a given cost cap. That cost cap had been $2.1B, and the OPF study teams have provided an interim report that such a cap shortchanges the scientific return relative to the recommendations of the last solar system decadal survey. While the new directive is applauded, the reality of the foreseeable budgets of NASA and ESA dictates that an OPF could be launched no sooner than 2018 or perhaps even 2020. The PSS reiterates that an OPF mission is of the highest scientific primacy for planetary science, and we support NASA efforts to find a route toward matching mission concept and budgetary plan that will bring such a mission to reality. Current plans for MSR call for an international mission for which there are multiple elements that can be contributed by participating space agencies. New technology development for key flight elements as well as for a Sample Receiving Facility (SRF) must be initiated at least 10 years before launch of the first MSR flight segment. Both the technical definition and the cost profile of an MSR mission remain to be worked out in detail. Available launch opportunities have been examined with respect to launch mass, landed mass, and lander stay time on the Martian surface, and it is already clear that some compromises will be needed. The 2020 and 2022 launch opportunities are tight for launch mass, the 2022 and 2024 opportunities are tight for stay time to the point of compromising roving and sample collection, the 2026 and 2028 are tight for stay time but less so than 2022 and 2024, and the 2028 and 2030 opportunities are tight for landed mass. The subcommittee has long endorsed a thoughtfully selected OPF mission, and the PSS affirms the recommendation made at our last meeting that the return of appropriately selected and documented samples from Mars is the highest-priority scientific objective for Mars exploration over the next 10-15 years. Both missions are costly relative to foreseeable resources available to PSD, and it appears likely to us that careful planning will be needed to optimize the phasing between these two ambitious endeavors. The PSS recommends that the completion of both an OPF mission and an MSR mission should continue to be an overarching goal of NASA’s planetary exploration program. 2 The Next Decadal Survey for Solar System Exploration The PSS is pleased that NASA intends to request that the National Research Council (NRC) initiate a new decadal survey for solar system exploration within approximately the next 12 months. As the PSS has recommended repeatedly over the past two years, it will be critical that the developers of such a survey take a fully integrated view of the entire solar system, including Mars and the Moon. The integration of heretofore largely independent strategies for the exploration of Mars, the Moon, and other solar system bodies will be essential if the strategy is to provide useful advice to NASA regarding the relative priorities among possible flagship missions and the relative importance of large missions and medium and smaller mission program lines. In the context of the next decadal survey, the PSS wishes to raise the question of the scientific breadth of the committee that will eventually be tasked with the development of a decadal strategy. We note that the current membership of the NRC Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX) does not have the sort of ideal balance of expertise that we hope and expect would be sought for the decadal survey committee; the committee has only a single atmospheric scientist, for instance. Although we understand that neither the subcommittee nor NASA can be involved in an NRC committee selection process, the PSS recommends that careful attention to disciplinary breadth be paid during recruitment of the committee that will oversee the next decadal survey for solar system exploration, so that the segments of the planetary science community studying planetary magnetospheres, atmospheres, surfaces, and interiors; gas-giant planets, ice-giant planets, rocky planets, dwarf planets, and small bodies; rings; dynamics; planetary materials; organic chemistry; and astrobiology all feel as though their scientific interests are well represented in strategic planning. Mars Exploration Program Compared with the situation at the time of the last PSS meeting, the Mars Exploration Program has seen several notable changes. The Phoenix Scout mission landed successfully on Mars on 25 May. Concept Study Reports for the two candidate Scout missions for the 2013 opportunity were received, and a selection is planned for September.
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